______________________________________________________________Blurb

the longing.Once Grace and Sam have found each other, they know they must fight to stay together. For Sam, this means a reckoning with his werewolf past. For Grace, it means facing a future that is less and less certain.

the loss.Into their world comes a new wolf named Cole, whose past is full of hurt and danger. He is wrestling with his own demons, embracing the life of a wolf while denying the ties of being human.

the linger.For Grace, Sam, and Cole, life is a constant struggle between two forces — wolf and human — with love bearing its two sides as well. It is harrowing and euphoric, freeing and entrapping, enticing and alarming. As their world falls apart, love is what lingers. But will it be enough?_____________________________________________________________________

“If you don’t have memories, it’s like you never existed.”

My Thoughts

Linger is book 2 of the The Wolves of Mercy Falls series, a sequel to Shiver.

The Prologue says almost everything about the story, so the ending is not very surprising. Despite its predictability, the story has still many beautiful and heartbreaking moments. Linger is melancholy, sometimes maddening and frustrating with Grace’s mysterious illness, Sam’s misgivings and disorientation, Cole’s emptiness and suicidal thoughts, Isabel’s sad cynicism, and Tom Culpeper’s wrath provide the dramatic atmosphere. All of this is intertwined with the refreshing viewpoints of Isabel and Cole, making the story lively, even funny.

I like Isabel, she is so harsh, bright, and vibrant. She is also very able and strong.

“I’m only telling you this so you know that I have wanted to escape about a hundred thousand times since then. I’ve thought about taking one of my dad’s eight million guns and putting it to my head and blowing my brains out. Sad part? Not even because I miss Jack. I mean, I do, but that’s not why I want to do it. It’s because I feel so damn guilty about how I killed him. I killed him. And some days I just can’t live with that. But I do. Because that’s life, Cole. Life’s pain. You just have to get over as much of it as you can.”

Coleis more dynamic and vigorous than all the others together.
He got what he expected, but ironically he is incapable staying a wolf for a longer period. He experiences completely different and more serious anguish than he had before. I am wondering if it is an explanation for Cole and Victor’s completely different reactions to wolf-toxin.

The doe blinked again, face extraordinarily gentle, and my stomach lurched. She was dead, and I wanted to be. I was going to find out how to keep myself a wolf. Or I just couldn’t do this anymore.

SamHis disbelief and joy because of his healing is so moving and heartwarming.

“Still waking up,” I said.He looked at me.“Your album. Still Waking Up.”He looked at me, expression intense. Surprised, maybe, that I’d come close. “That’s exactly how it feels. That’s exactly it. One of these days, I’m going to get used to the idea that it’s morning and I’m going to be a guy for the rest of the day. For all the rest of all the days. But until then, I’m stumbling around.”

Grace and SamThe honesty and openness Sam and Grace had in Shiver hardly appear in Linger. They try to keep away problems and menace by not talking about them, pretending they don’t exist. These unspoken words create a barrier between them, eroding the intimacy they had before. Their love is said to be beautiful and described poetically but sadly you can’t feel it.

He’d only been gone two seconds, but the room got brighter when they were together, as if they were two elements that became brilliant in proximity. At Sam’s clumsy efforts to carry the vacuum, Grace smiled a new smile that I thought only he ever got, and he shot her a withering look full of the sort of subtext you could only get from a lot of conversations whispered after dark.

It was astonishing to see the loneliness and neglect of these teens, without the help of parents, or adults, relying only on each other. It is so hard to live and deal with this huge secret all alone.

Grumblings

Sam – he is not a man of deeds in this book. I hoped that he would become a stronger character than he was in Shiver, but it didn’t happen.

Grace – I don’t understand why Grace thinks that not talking to Sam about her illness is a good idea. She is absolutely aware of the fact that he already knows it, so I really don’t get it.

_____________________________________________________________Blurb

For years, Grace has watched the wolves in the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf — her wolf — is a chilling presence she can’t seem to live without.

Meanwhile, Sam has lived two lives: In winter, the frozen woods, the protection of the pack, and the silent company of a fearless girl. In summer, a few precious months of being human… until the cold makes him shift back again.

Now, Grace meets a yellow-eyed boy whose familiarity takes her breath away. It’s her wolf. It has to be. But as winter nears, Sam must fight to stay human — or risk losing himself, and Grace, forever.
_____________________________________________________________________

“You’re like a song that I heard when I was a little kid
but forgot I knew until I heard it again.”

My Thoughts

Shiver is a beautiful, melancholy love story, filled with lots of tension and emotion. Grace and Sam’s love is true and beautiful, but their life is surrounded by danger and uncertainty.

Therhythmand thestyle of the writing is fascinating. The story flows inevitably, making me desperately worried about Grace and Sam.

“I’d found heaven and grabbed it as tightly as I could, but it was unraveling, an insubstantial thread sliding between my fingers, too fine to hold.”

I love Grace, she is a very strong character, self-confident, honest, open, mature. She saves Sam several times, her behavior and love for Sam is without pretense.

“His body was warm and he smelled so good—like wolf, and trees, and home—that I buried my face in his shoulder and closed my eyes again. He made a soft noise and rolled his shoulders back against me, pressing closer.Right before I drifted back to sleep again, my breathing slowing to match his, I had a brief, burning thought: I can’t live without this.”

Sam is a sweet boy with a tragic past and hopeless future. Sam’s entity as a wolf is actually like a disease. He can’t control his changes; his physical form depends on temperature: in cold weather he alters to a wolf, and stays like that till spring. He suffers in his wolf form, because he loses himself. He loses his humanity, words, and memories. As a wolf, he doesn’t even remember Grace’s name. He is able to recognize her only by her scent. It is so sad.

“I didn’t think I belonged here in her world, a boy stuck between two lives, dragging the dangers of the wolves with me, but when she said my name, waiting for me to follow, I knew I’d do anything to stay with her.”

This disease is incurable: every year he stays in his human form less and less, and finally will be stuck in the form of a wolf forever, and the man he once was fades away. Sam knows his time is over. He lives his last days as a human.

A chilly gust of wind lifted his hair and sent a shower of golden leaves glimmering down around him. He spread out his arms, letting them fall into his hands. He looked like a dark angel in an eternal autumn wood. “Did you know you get one happy day for every one you catch?”I didn’t know what he meant, even after he opened his fist to show me the quivering leaves crumpled in his palm.“One happy day for every falling leaf you catch.” Sam’s voice was low.

The secondary characters are well-drawn as well: Rachel and Olivia, Grace’s parents, Isabel and Jack, Beck and Shelby.

Although the remedy is very, very risky, I am relieved and happy with the ending. This story is perfect and complete like this. Now I’m worried in advance, because after reading the blurb of Linger I have a bad feeling that in the next book this beautiful love will be exposed to more suffering and pain.